The Apprentice
by Nestrik
Summary: Adi Gallia has a new apprentice, but this one is different than the others... is she a match for Anakin Skywalker?
1. Author's Note

I'd like to thank, first, my friends: Kristen, Kelly, Alex, Amber, Christine, Rachel, PJ, Allie, Saira, Dana, Cassie, Clay, Jen, Rachel (the other one) and Nick  
  
Next, my ff.net people: Xela Lupe, AmBLONDE, Good Charlotte's Girl, Rachelle Lily, Rachelle Lupe, Johnny Affropuff, SSJTOM a.k.a. the LEAFSTER, Midnight, Kerri, Somebody's Someone, Kumiko Eharu, Midnigh Primrose-Riddle, Jen20069, blahblah, schizopinecone, brand-new-freak, Rina-San, Padawan Atreyu, Kuziko, Dark Chaos, Jaded Rose, Angel-In-Chains, The Ice Mice, and the Good Haiku Police. THANK YOU HAIKU MAFIA! You were first in the 'rebellion' against the HKP.  
  
THIS IS THE REWRITE. Above are several people who reviewed this story and others who I have spoken too and formed a friendship with. Kumiko, you were my first 'internet friend' and I feel like I've known you forever! Jaded Roses. Whitney. thanks for ranting lol. This was one of my first stories.which is why I'm rewriting it. This takes place between TPM and TAOTC.  
  
Have fun. ROCK ON! 


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One  
  
Adi Gallia held her light saber. She felt the Force stir somewhere to her left. She whirled around and moved her light saber in several complicated patterns, deflecting the bullets that shot at her from the robotic orb. She took off her blindfold and looked at her apprentice, her Padawan. She had not had an apprentice since Siri. Siri had been a tough job. Adi did not know where she was now. She only knew that she had turned a forceful schoolgirl into a magnificent Jedi knight. Adi smiled inwardly. Siri had been a job. A challenge. A possible friend.  
  
Mazairi, Adi's Padawan, looked amazed. Adi remembered when she had been a Padawan. Watching her teacher deflect those bullets had looked impossible. Now it was effortless.  
  
The only disconcerting thing about the girl was her age. Mazairi was sixteen years old and had just recently been accepted into the Jedi Order. Yoda was astounded at Mazairi's talent, but Mace Windu had been reluctant. Even more reluctant than in the Anakin Skywalker case when the boy was eight. Now Anakin was seventeen. Obi Wan Kenobi was looking for a job for them to do together. Something in Naboo was in the works.  
  
Adi allowed herself to smile at Mazairi. Mazairi gave a weak smile back. Adi knew that Mazairi felt nauseated. The pressure of having turn from her old ways into the Jedi regimen was exigent.  
  
"Why don't we take a break now, Mazairi? It's been a long day. And there is still the afternoon to come. I shall give you a training saber, and show you some moves. We will practice after our lunch break.  
  
Mazairi trailed after her master as the walked out of the gymnasium- like training room. There were in Coruscant, the birthplace of Adi Gallia. Mazairi, however, had been born on Tatooine, the desert planet ruled by the Huts. Mazairi shivered as she remembered lining on Tatooine. It was so deserted there. Now all she had to do was look out one of the many windows to see civilization, and there wasn't a slave in sight.  
  
Mazairi thought of her mother, still on Tatooine, and shivered with that thought of the planet.  
  
Adi was aware that Mazairi was trailing behind a bit. She halted and allowed Mazairi to catch up with her. She didn't turn around, because she knew that Mazairi was lost in thought. She could read the silence. If Adi turned around, Mazairi would feel that Adi was intruding on her thinking space. Adi wanted to be friends with her Padawan, as she had been with Siri.  
  
Mazairi caught up to her, then advanced in front of Adi. Adi could tell that Mazairi was lost in her contemplations. She wondered why.  
  
"Mazairi," she said.  
  
The Padawan stopped but did not turn around.  
  
"Mazairi," Adi repeated softly.  
  
Mazairi turned around, but not after roughly wiping her face on the sleeve of her black apprentice robe. Adi saw that her tanned face had been streaked with tears.  
  
Mazairi advanced towards Adi slowly, evaluating her. She did not know whether or not she could talk to this woman, this master. On Tatooine, the elders had been respected. Adi seemed too bitter, too frigid, to unaware to comprehend the yearning Mazairi had to get her mother to Coruscant.  
  
"Mazairi, you left a mother behind."  
  
It wasn't a question.  
  
Mazairi nodded her head, slightly stunned that this Jedi master had been able to read through her uncomfortable curtain of silence.  
  
"I had to part with my mother at your age. But there are choices people must make. You wanted to be a Jedi, and you yearned to stay with your mother. I know how you miss her. I still miss my mother even though she has been cold in the dirt of Coruscant for a long time now. But you made a decision. Will you hold it up now? You may go back to Tatooine, or stay here and maintain your studies."  
  
Mazairi gazed into Adi Gallia's eyes. When she sadly realized the answer was not waiting in those fathomless chocolate eyes, she sighed and ran her left hand through her brown hair that swung to her shoulders.  
  
"I choose to be a Jedi," said Mazairi.  
  
Adi smiled. The two continued walking towards the cafeteria. Adi decided to let Mazairi meet the other Padawans of her age. Mazairi needed friends.  
  
"There is Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan learner. Anakin shows much promise to be a good Jedi night. But he also shows fear."  
  
"How do you know, Master?" Mazairi showed vague interest.  
  
"Mace Windu tested him in front of the Jedi Council."  
  
Mazairi could tell that Adi did not want to discuss whatever had happened in that meeting of the Council, but she still wondered. As Adi continued to talk of the other Padawan learners, their masters, and their achievements, Mazairi let herself fall back a pace so that she could look back at the youth Adi had identified as Anakin Skywalker. He was tall, and his hair looked dirty brown. His skin was tan. He's from Tatooine!  
  
The thought hit Mazairi like a slap. Only people of the desert planet had skin like that, eyes so haunted. but she hadn't seen his eyes. Why did she know his eyes?  
  
Mazairi turned back, heavily disturbed. Adi was still talking.  
Mazairi closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The room was quiet. The afternoon training session had been grueling, and the handle of her practice lightsaber still glittered with drops of her perspiration. Words flowed through her mind like water trickling through stones.  
  
Think, Mazi. Think, my child  
  
The words of her mother.  
  
The memories flooded back.  
  
Mommy, I can see Daddy.  
  
No you can't, Mazi. He is far, far away on Alderaan.  
  
But I can see him. In my mind, Mommy!  
  
Your father is dead, Mazairi.  
  
Mazairi remembered those words. She had spoken them when she was six. She had seen her supposedly dead father in a dream, a dream so vivid it was real. Mazairi remembered every detail of her waking up, her thin cotton nightdress soaked with sweat, the soft padding sound her feet had made as she had ran across the room to her mother's cot.  
  
She believed her mother.  
  
Then it happened again. She was fourteen at the time, and awake. It was no dream.  
  
There were two red bolts of lightning.. A cry of "No. A young man with flashing blue eyes and the braid of a Padawan learner behind a curtain of red. Then a pair of red eyes, thoughtless eyes, surrounded by red and black stripes.. The lightning belonged to him. Then a pair of green eyes, squinted with pain.He was dead now. That wasn't red lightning. That was a lightsaber.  
  
The curtain of red was gone. There was a flash of black and a flash of white. Blue and red met, turning into a rope of energy. Then a strangled gurgle.  
  
The black fell away; the red and blue fell with it. All that was left was the white and green, the green of the dead man's eyes.  
  
Qui Gon Jin.  
  
The name had saturated Mazairi's thoughts.  
  
Qui Gon Jin. The dead man with the green eyes had a name.  
  
The blue eyed man. Obi Wan Kenobi.  
  
"Why did you not tell us that you could see things?"  
  
Mazairi whirled around. Adi Gallia stood in the doorway. Mazairi relaxed.  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"You were talking, my Padawan. Your eyes were glazed over. I recognized the signs."  
  
"It wasn't my fault!"  
  
"I never said that it was your fault. You have a special gift, Mazairi. However, Yoda should know of this."  
  
Ten minutes later, Mazairi felt like she was walking into death as she approached the place where Yoda was sleeping. Her journey to Coruscant flashed through her memory.  
  
Sixteen-year-old Mazairi had packed her bags. She had kissed her mother goodbye. She had won her freedom from the Huts in the place that the natives of Tatooine called "Blood-Rain." It was ironic. It never rained on Tatooine, but in the Hut's version of the Colosseum, the gladiators got a taste of the moisture that other planets experienced.  
  
Mazairi had killed a man. She remembered the slithery feeling of his blood over her hands. The crowd had roared with anger. Many had lost money in foolish bets they had made. Mazairi had left Tatooine that night.  
  
Two days later, Mazairi had looked about her. She was on a lovely, ancient planet, that sang of sorrow and happiness in its rainfall. Baroonda.  
  
She had set down her bags and opened her arms to the salty rain falling from the gray sky. Laughing with pleasure, Mazairi caught raindrops in her hands and liked her fingers. Her hair, streaming wet down her back, felt cool around her neck where it had wrapped itself. She ran to the ocean, put her feet in, and sang an old folksong from Tatooine.  
"Beautiful white petals of rain Drop down on me from above King of all wetness Touch Tatooine with your glory"  
Mazairi had never seen rain before. On Tatooine, moisture was farmed out of the barren sands. On Baroonda, it fell from the sky and licked her feet teasingly, running off her fingers and toes.  
  
She had been sad to leave Baroonda two days later for Coruscant. The Mik Awla sitting beside her asked her why she was so sad.  
  
"I have never seen rain before," answered Mazairi.  
  
"Neither have you seen buildings as tall as the clouds," the old Mik Awla said laboriously.  
  
She had thought he had been lying.  
  
But when the ship touched down on the landing dock, and she saw lines of traffic out the window, she believed.  
  
Mazairi stood there for a minute or two. Then there was a hand on her elbow, and a gently rough voice in her ear.  
  
"Welcome to Coruscant, Mazairi of Tatooine. I shall be your teacher."  
  
"Do you want to tell me about these visions?" Yoda asked.  
  
"I've had a vision. A recurring vision, many times, when I'm awake," Mazairi began reluctantly. "It started two years ago. I saw three men, fighting. Suddenly one was trapped behind a red energy field, leaving the other two trapped in some sort of fuel tank. I'm not sure what it was. The two men fighting were very different. One wore a white Jedi robe, had blue eyes and a green lightsaber. The other was dressed in black, with a red double-edged saber. He had red striped skin, with black striped in between them and horns sticking out of his temples. The horned man killed the blue- eyed man." Mazairi said this stolidly.  
  
"The man behind the force field had a terrible look on his face. His face was wrenched up with horror and sadness. He had a blue lightsaber. As soon as the force field cleared he leaped at the horned man. The hor3ned man was killed- cut in half. Afterwards their names came to me. Qui Gon Jin and Obi Wan Kenobi." Mazairi put her head in her hands.  
  
Adi was silent for a few moments. Yoda stroked his chin with one pointy finger.  
  
"Hm," he said. "Very odd, I think. You did not tell of this before. Why?"  
  
"I thought the Order would not accept me."  
  
"Accept you? Padawan, gifts such as you have are treasured. A great help you can be to the Jedi Order. Use you, we can. Do you fear?"  
  
"Fear?" Mazairi said, startled.  
  
"Fear, child. Do you fear your gift?"  
  
Mazairi squared her shoulders and stood up straight, but her "no" was still a weak one. 


End file.
